


it's alter ego april!

by havethecouragetoexist



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Batfamily Shenanigans, Crack, Fluff, Gen, Lots of it, i guess, now with
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-01-05 08:40:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12186678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havethecouragetoexist/pseuds/havethecouragetoexist
Summary: robin; noun1. partner to Batman2. a small insectivorous passerine birda.k.a. here's an idea for a guessing game: guess which definition Damian fits





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> once upon a time, i asked myself, "shit sheryl what if robin was a robin!!" and thus this monstrosity was born. like almost all of my fics this was supposed to be a quick one for the lols and suddenly it's multi-chaptered good job me
> 
> if you like batfamily shenanigans this is the place for you!! this is a low-stakes game of Try To Figure Out What To Do With Bird Damian filled with lots of fluff and one liners and i hope you enjoy what you read
> 
> anyhoots the plan atm is for the first chapter to be the fam finding out and reacting and in the second chapter they just kinda figure out what's going on and what to do and they'll do something else i guess in a third chapter i don't really have a plan yet so we're all on this journey and figuring things out together!!! fun stuff

“Master Damian?”

The Manor is quiet.

Bruce left for a weekend conference an hour ago, and Alfred, making his rounds to rouse the other occupants of the house, raps a fist – one, two – on the door to Damian’s room. It’s already ten in the morning, and Damian rarely, if ever, sleeps in this late.

If nothing else, he supposes he should check to make sure that the boy hasn’t been taken again by his mother.

(The previous kidnapping lasted all of twenty-seven hours, resulting in three sprained assassin ankles, about two hundred and ninety-five sprained assassin egos, one saltwater-ruined Robin uniform, one naked Nightwing, and two new gun caches for the Red Hood.)

Alfred enters the room, the well-oiled door hinge swinging open quietly to reveal darkness, the blackout curtains on the far end of the large room still closed. The butler frowns, expertly manoeuvring in the dark to pull open the curtains with a flourish.

“Master Damian?” The bed is empty, nothing but sheets and pillows, and the rest of the room is similarly conspicuously missing a scowling pre-teen assassin.

“Master Dam – oh, good Lord.”

Because there, perched on the edge of the desk against the wall, is a tiny _Erithacus rubecula_ , red breast streaked through with painfully familiar shades of green and yellow.

The robin, for lack of a better word, glowers at him, just as it sits, impossibly indignant, on a stack of textbooks.

“Master Damian?” he asks – because, truly, Alfred is no inexperienced fool – and he steps closer to the bird.

It – or he, apparently – nods, the rest of his fat, brown-backed torso following the movement, and the butler simply sighs.

“I suppose it would have happened to you as well sooner or later,” he says, resigned, “come along then.”

Damian looks impossibly stiff even as he spreads his wings to fly over to Alfred’s outstretched finger, and settles down with a distinctly unimpressed noise that sounds too much like the boy’s trademark tut for Alfred’s comfort.

(They probably have bird seed somewhere.)

***

Duke and Tim walk into the dining room at around the same time, Duke towelling off his hair from a shower post his daily run around the Manor grounds, and Tim – well.

Tim stumbles more than walks, really, black hair sticking up in every direction and red lines on his face from falling asleep on the keyboard of the Batcave computer after yet another full night of…being Tim.

“Hey Alfie,” Duke greets, reaching for a glass of water on the counter. “How’s your – what the hell?”

Tim, eyes more than half closed, grunts in annoyance as he realises that Duke has stopped dead in his tracks, and narrowly avoids walking right into Duke’s back before sliding around him to slump into his chair.

Tim promptly jerks back, wide awake, when hot hot liquid splashes all over his lap.

“Jesus, shit, what the –” he squints at the table, where a fat red bird stands, head tilted slightly. “Why – why.”

“Yeah, um, Alfred,” Duke begins again, eyes wide as he steps cautiously closer, watching the feathered creature guardedly, “why is there a bird in our dining room?”

“And did it just spill coffee on me?” Tim tacks on peevishly.

“Spilt coffee – why,” Alfred turns around from where he is frying eggs on the stove, and gives the bird a stern look, “Master Damian. I would appreciate it if you refrained from using your new…stature for mischief.”

“Damian?” Duke and Tim echo in unison, Duke taking a few steps back until the backs of his legs hit the counter.

There is a moment of silence, air thick, before Tim slouches again and scrubs a slightly coffee-stained hand down his face.

“Jesus Christ, of course.” Tim’s tone is dry, and he looks Damian dead in the eye before turning around to walk out of the room, breakfast forgotten. “Screw this, I’m going back to bed. Alfred, wake me when you’ve sent the demon bird to the SPCA.”

“Of course, Master Timothy,” Alfred replies, which earns him an angry squawk. “Master Duke, if you are still interested in your breakfast, there are peanut butter muffins on the table.”

“What kind of fresh hell is this?”

“Language, sir, and if memory serves this is the fifth such incident since Master Dick originated the role of Robin; it is then, I believe, a stale hell.”

***

 **drakethefake:** _everyday i wake up into a new nightmare_

 **drakethefake:** _im going back to bed but just thought you’d wanna know to come over_

 

 **spoileralert:** _ur such a drama queen lmaooo_

 **spoileralert:** _what happened_

 **spoileralert:** _also what’s up with ur username_

 

 **drakethefake:** _jay changed it and im too lazy to change it back_

 **drakethefake:** _and robin is a robin_

 **drakethefake:** _damian is literally now a red yellow and green feathered lucifer sitting on b’s antique mahogany table waiting to drag us all into bird purgatory_

 **drakethefake:** _birdgatory_

 

 **spoileralert:** _no_

 **spoileralert:** _nooooOOOOOOOO_

 **spoileralert:** _omg_

 **spoileralert:** _oh my god oh my goD o H MY gOOOOOOOoooooDDD_

 **spoileralert:** _ON MY WAY_

 **spoileralert:** _did you text dick too_

 

 **drakethefake:** _i did but his snapchats last night looked wild so i have no idea if he’s dead or alive rn_

***

Bruce Wayne’s face looks down from the 4K ultra high-definition screen of the main console. There is a crease between his brows that strongly suggests the beginnings of a tension headache, and when he speaks it is through a tight jaw.

“I’ll wrap up here as soon as I can.” He looks at Damian, standing stiffly on the edge of the keyboard. “Any strange symptoms I should know about.”

Damian shakes his head, then pauses before nodding once. Duke bites the inside of his cheek as he watches the bird bend to tap at the keys. Damian’s every movement is exaggerated, each nod followed by a swaying of his entire body when it follows behind his much shorter neck – it is, in a word, _adorable_ , but Duke rather suspects that Damian is very capable of grievous bodily harm if he ever voiced such a thought out loud, bird body or no bird body.

_I HAVE BEEN –_

Duke and Bruce both watch in silence as Damian tip-taps his message painstaking, letter after letter.

_SUFFERING FROM SOME –_

It _is_ taking awfully long, and when Duke glances up at the screen Bruce’s expression is extra blank in that particular way that Duke has seen before but hasn’t yet decided the meaning of.

_GASTROINTESTINAL –_

“Perhaps some economical vocabulary, Damian, in the interests of time,” says Bruce.

_DISCOMFORT SINCE PENNY –_

“Just A would be fine, Damian.”

Duke and Bruce reserve judgement when Damian makes his way to the backspace key before proceeding to give it five taps.

_A PREPARED THE –_

“Maybe there’s a faster way of doing this?” Bruce directs his attention to Duke at that, although Damian continues to steadfastly alternate between hopping and fluttering across the keyboard, showing no signs of having heard his suggestion. “I mean, you guys know Morse code, right? Couldn’t Damian do that, just with, y’know, a full stop or something?”

At that, the bird finally pauses.

Damian tilts his head up to look at the monitor. He and Bruce share a look that seems way more meaningful than any man-bird interaction has any right to be, before the man gives a slight nod.

A string of “m”s appear on the screen in short order, interspersed by the occasional space, and Bruce says, “that was a good suggestion, Duke.”

Damian seems to be hitting the keys with more vigour than before, but Duke keeps his eyes on Batman, and just does his best to smile.

***

Stephanie Brown’s arrival at the Manor is announced by a loud banging of the back door, and an even louder squeal.

“Tiny baby!”

Damian, alas, is still in bird form, with roughly the same amount of answers as when he started the morning – that is to say, zero – and unfortunate enough to be directly in the blonde’s line of sight when she sweeps through Wayne Manor’s fourth foyer into its sixth den.

(Or third, depending on whether one counts in a clockwise or counter-clockwise direction.)

The boy-bird squawks indignantly when she descends upon him, hands outstretched and grasping, and he flutters up to rest on the topmost of great-great-great grandmother Wayne’s collection of antique fireplace pokers.

“Ms Brown,” Alfred greets, polishing cloth in hand, “I’m afraid Master Damian feels rather…vulnerable in this state.”

“Aww, Dami,” she coos, “come down here, I won’t bite.”

The only answer Steph receives is a pointed shaking out of the wings, followed by a beady stare.

“Anyway…” She pulls a face back in response. “When Tim told me what happened I had the bestest idea ever!” A piece of paper, crumpled and looking like it was yanked hastily out of the printer before the printing was fully done, is whipped out of her backpack.

“We’re baking!”

Alfred’s moustache twitches ever so slightly.

“Oh, come on, Alfie,” Steph sidles over to the old man, nudges his arm with her shoulder, “it won’t be _that_ bad. That Halloween incident was a one-off thing. And I’m not Tim. And you can supervise!”

“If you say so, Miss Stephanie.” Alfred does not give one of his longsuffering sighs, but the emphatically-raised brow conveys the same idea well enough.

***

Two hours later, when Tim walks into the kitchen in search of his second breakfast, he is greeted by the smell of vanilla, toasted orange slices, and fair-trade cinnamon.

There are two pies sitting on the kitchen counter; steam, just barely visible in the late morning sunlight slanting in through the French windows, curls up from golden brown crusts. Alfred sits in a stool next to the pies with a book held open in one hand, the other occupied with stirring tea in the No. 1 Granddad mug Cass got him for Christmas.

Steph stands a distance away with her hair pulled up into a haphazard topknot. There is just the barest hint of her second lower canine chewing at her lip as she fiddles with the pie dish in front of her, flour-streaked nose scrunched up in concentration.

 _Damian_ is equally oblivious to Tim’s arrival, hopping across the top of the pie to make tiny crosses along the edge of the crust.

(It looks disturbingly like that scene from Snow White, and Tim doesn’t even want to think about whether Damian washed his feet.)

He turns around and goes back to his room for a nap.

***

Damian, for some reason, seems perfectly content to let his sister hang around in a way that would be treated with disdain were it to be attempted by any of his other siblings.

Alfred, in the midst of carrying out his twice-weekly curtain vacuuming, comes across Damian and Cassandra seated in the den, utterly motionless. Cass lies on the chaise lounge pushed up against the wall, hands folded over chest in a platonic imitation of a mummy. Damian perches on the edge of her nose, and Cass seems to be going a little cross-eyed as she stares at her brother.

He just stares back in silence and stillness.

Alfred wonders if the two have developed some form of telepathy in accompaniment with Damian’s newfound state, then promptly pushes aside the notion.

God only knows the mischief _those_ two would be able to get up to with the added advantage of telepathy.

***

“ _Dami_. Baby D. Dames. Damono.”

When Bruce enters the cave later that night, it is to the instantly recognisable dulcet tones of Dick’s whining.

Nightwing, sans cowl, stands beneath a rocky outcropping in the cave, his hands splayed on his hips as he tilts his head back at what is practically a ninety-degree angle. Damian is perched on said outcropping, looking utterly unconcerned as he picks at dirt between his feathers.

“Come _on_ ,” Dick continues, “Just five minutes wouldn’t kill you.”

Damian pauses and hops to the edge of the outcrop to peer down at Dick, whose face lights up in hope.

Hope that is promptly extinguished when Damian, with a flick of his claw, scatters a shower of pebbles to land on Dick’s head.

“Ow, Damian!” Dick is truly pouting now, no two ways about it, and he catches sight of Bruce when he glances away for a moment from his little brother hiding three meters above his head. “Oh, heya B!”

“Dick,” Bruce replies. “And you are…”

“Trying to get my beloved baby brother, smaller than a button and twice as cute, to snuggle.” There is not a lick of shame on Dick’s face, delight instead evident in the stretch of his grin.

He earns another pebble assault for his troubles.

An idea stirs to life in Bruce’s mind, and he keeps a straight face as he draws closer.

“Damian,” Bruce calls when he is a few meters away from the two, “Patrol.”

There is a blur of red, yellow and green, and before he knows it Damian is perched on Bruce’s shoulder. He reaches up to run a hand over the bird’s back, and Dick is agape.

“ _Excuse_ me?” His expression is one of utter betrayal, and he narrows his eyes slightly before huffing in what is, to Bruce, an unnecessarily overdramatic manner. “I see how it is. That’s alright, Damian, just leave me to rot in solitude and despair, I can handle it.”

Damian barely reacts, other than a slight tilt of his head.

***

It’s a slow night. All the criminals of Gotham collectively decided to take a breather tonight, apparently, and Jason can feel himself getting restless as he leaps from rooftop to rooftop.

(Irritatingly, his fingers keep sliding towards a pocket that has been devoid of cigarettes for a month now, but he runs his fingers over his teeth and ignores the itching beneath his skin.)

Jason is drifting closer and closer to his tiny apartment in Tricorner, and he’s about to call it a night when he sees a familiar figure, lurking in the shadows three blocks away. Bruce must be staking out something, or watching someone, because he barely moves a muscle in the two minutes it takes Jason to land in front of him, guns safely tucked out of reach of thieving Bat hands.

“Hey, B.”

Batman shifts slightly, any sound of his cape rustling conspicuous in its absence.

“So, who are we glowering into submission today? Is it,” Jason glances across the alley to the neon “ _Chong’s Chinese Cuisine_ ” sign, accompanied by a single red lantern, “dim sum desperadoes?”

No response.

“Ah, classic Bats,” says Jason, folding his legs beneath him to drop gracelessly to the ground. “Well, I’m not here for you anyway, have you seen the baby bird around?”

That, strangely enough, gets a just barely controlled twitch out of the older man, his head jerking back infinitesimally.

“What?” Jason leans to one side to get a better look at Bruce’s face – or, well, his mouth and jaw – as his eyes narrow in suspicion.

“What do you mean.”

“You did something. With your face.”

Bruce’s jaw clenches in a way that strongly suggests to Jason that he’s holding back a sigh, before he asks stiffly, “Did you mean Tim or Damian.”

At that, Jason snorts. “Tim may _actually_ be baby-sized, but I’m talking about Damian. I’m missing four of my hoodies, and I need to check if he took them the last time he came around to my place.”

“How did you know.”

“Know what?” Jason frowns, torso still slanted to his side, “Look, dude. I know being dark and mysterious is your _thing_ , but you gotta work with me here.”

The sigh that seems to have been threatening at the back of Batman’s throat breaks out, and then the cape ripples as he holds out a hand to reveal…a ball of fluff?

No, it’s a bird – a tiny one, at that, but Jason can see it now, cast in the shadow of the Bat’s cape.

(Dammit, he really needs to fix the lenses on his helmet. They haven’t been working properly since he fell into the East End harbour two weeks ago. That, or his eyesight is going.)

“Yeah, okay, that doesn’t explain anything, why are you just holding a baby – oh my god.” Jason’s eyes widen, and he watches as the bird shifts ever so slightly in Batman’s palm, puffing its chest up. A hand reaches up to the release mechanism on his helmet, and he tucks it under one arm as he leans closer to peer at the thing – and yes, he can see it better now, in the weak, washed-out light of the Gotham streetlamps. The feathers are undoubtedly Robin-coloured, and the markings around the eyes even vaguely resemble a domino if he squints.

“My god,” Jason breathes again, “Damian?”

The bird chirps, and Jason is no bird whisperer but he thinks it sounds displeased, and the pointy-eared cowl inclines forward in what Bruce probably thinks is an actual nod.

“He’s –” Jason’s a little lost for words, actually, something that’s quite a feat. He supposes he shouldn’t be surprised; it’s happened to all of them, but. Well.

He’s not sure why he thought Damian would be immune, actually – might have something to do with him being the direct descendent of an actual semi-demonic asshole.

“He’s a _birb_ ,” Jason finally manages to force out, awe-struck.

Batman’s jaw clenches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yo my guys the single red lantern thing was a lil sneaky wink wink joke if anyone gets it then good job to you and holla to all my fellow descendants of china out there i see you


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> im sorry that this is so late i have no excuse

When Batman steps out of the Batmobile into the cave a day later at three in the morning, he isn’t surprised to see Tim slouched over one of the consoles, steaming mug of coffee in hand.

He is, however, surprised to see that Damian is not there with him, perched on top of the monitor and generally doing his utmost to irk Tim.

Bruce doesn’t see the point of Damian remaining in the cave on patrol nights, given his current less-than-optimal stature, but Damian, for some reason, insists on ignoring his wishes that the boy rest upstairs.

“Master Bruce,” Alfred greets from the med station, taking inventory with a sturdy black ledger in one hand, “I trust you had an invigorating and restful night.”

Alfred’s tone is cold as the Sahara at night and twice as dry, and Bruce says nothing.

He reaches up a little too quickly to pull back the cowl, and a muscle in his jaw twitches when stitches tug at the edges of the two-day-old gash in his shoulder, a souvenir of a League mission gone wrong.

“Did Damian go up early,” asks Bruce. The preteen was still fluttering about the keyboard Duke modified for him when Batman left for patrol, and it doesn’t escape his notice that Tim is at the very same console that Damian was using.

“Um.” Tim tilts ever so slightly away from the monitor, his chin pointing toward Bruce but his eyes never leaving the screen, “Damian’s upstairs with Jason. They’re…exercising.”

Bruce slows in stripping away the outer, armoured layer of his suit.

“At three. In the morning.”

“I believe Master Jason suggested Master Damian attempt to dodge thrown projectiles as an exercise in agility.”

Bruce blinks, once.

Tim nods, now fully turned to face the older man, his coffee mug clutched in both hands like a lifeline.

“Jason thought the demon bird would appreciate the added challenge, and they both recognised a need for more practice in low visibility conditions. In fact, if I remember correctly, Damian was telling me about how he felt like he needed help with honing his other non-visual senses in a combat situation.”

Every line on Tim’s face is etched with sincerity, and he never breaks eye contact. Any stranger who didn’t know better would believe Tim in a heartbeat, but Bruce isn’t a stranger, and he _does_ know better.

He’s seen Damian fight off multiple attackers at once blindfolded and with one shoulder out of commission. If the idea that he would need help with his fighting abilities were laughable, the idea that he would admit such a need, and to Tim, no less, is downright hilarious.

He returns Tim’s gaze, the younger man’s expression utterly guileless, and Bruce hates himself for teaching his sons to lie so well.

“…Damian’s self-reflection may have been prompted by some choice words from Jason.”

Alfred clears his throat.

“I do believe Master Jason was rather offended by Master Damian’s commentary on the state of his motorcycle, after which the former demanded satisfaction. His exact words were – pardon the profanity, sir – ‘talk shit, get hit’.”

***

When a nondescript black car, sleek in its understated-ness, cruises up the overly long driveway to the Manor, Jason just happens to be in the library, reading in the window seat.

Alfred, doing whatever it is he does, sees the car too, and a small smile creeps onto his lips.

Jason is perfectly happy in his window seat, nursing some particularly nasty bruises, thank you very much, and if it were anyone other than Alfred he would give them some impressive stink eye and stay exactly where he is, but it _is_ Alfred who nods meaningfully at him.

And so it is that Jason puts the book down to the side, carefully marking his place before dragging himself reluctantly out of the library.

He tries his best to keep the grumbling to a minimum.

When Jason makes it to the foyer and opens the front door, he expects to see some sleazy white moneybag, or a Bruce Wayne groupie – or groupies – or a harassed, underpaid, slightly-crazy-around-the-eyes W.E. employee.

What he _doesn’t_ expect to see is one point nine meters of Amazon, wrapped up from the biting evening chill in a lush coat that probably cost more than his nicest apartment, soft smile and large, dark eyes and glinting gauntlets just barely visible under oversized sleeves.

“Hello, Jason,” Wonder Woman’s voice is low and husky, vowels round in that difficult-to-identify way, “Zatanna and I are here to see Bruce.”

Jason opens his mouth.

He shuts it again.

Zatanna Zatara, standing two steps behind and to the right of the Amazon, just raises her brows at Jason in that sympathetic, knowing manner.

“Ah, Princess,” Alfred’s voice, coming from further down the hall, rescues Jason, and as he comes closer it takes on a faint note of reproach, “do come in, and Miss Zatara, too. Master Jason, please do not leave our guests out in the cold.”

“Thank you, Alfred,” comes the reply. Jason, brain still a little addled, is slow to respond, but respond he does, eventually. The two women step into the foyer to fill the space vacated when his feet slide a couple paces back.

Jason doesn’t know what he was expecting, but the sight of a plain, grey sweater over dark blue jeans looks out of place on the Themiscyrian warrior when Diana removes her coat.

“Thanks, Alfred,” Zatanna chimes in, patting Jason gently on the head as the pair sweep past, led by Alfred. “Do we just go straight downstairs?”

“I’m afraid so,” replies Alfred, “Master Bruce was insistent that we resolve this matter as quickly as possible, and I was unable to persuade him to receive you in a room less wretchedly dreary than the basement.” His tone strongly suggests he is holding back a heavy sniff of disdain, but Diana places a gentle hand on his arm.

“It’s alright, Alfred, Zatanna and I can manage.”

“I love the basement,” Zatanna interjects, face blank in that not-so-blank way, lips literally twitching at the corners, “it makes me batty with delight.”

***

“Shit.”

Jason slams down the book he was staring at dazedly and springs to his feet.

“ _Shit!_ ”

Alfred turns from his dusting of the library’s shelves P through R and narrows his eyes.

“Wonder Woman is _here_. In the Manor,” says Jason, eyes faintly wild, “Wonder Woman is in Bruce’s fucking Ca-basement.”

“Master Jason, please.” Alfred’s lips are pressed thin.

“ _Shit!_ ”

Jason dashes out of the room, sprinting full-tilt down the corridor.

Alfred takes out his ledger and adds to Jason’s swear jar debt.

***

When Jason screeches down the fireman’s pole into the cave, he is greeted with a bizarre tableau.

Damian, still in bird form, rests snugly in the hands of one Diana Prince, his feathers fluffed up and the look on his bird face betraying the absolute height of contentment. The Amazon is speaking to him in soft whispers, smile warm as she holds him close to her chest. Zatanna stands to the side, muttering under her breath. Her hands move in tandem with the blue-orange glow enveloping the boy.

Bruce hovers behind Diana, peering around the side of her bicep to keep an eye on Damian.

All of them turn when Jason lands with a loud smack of his boots on the damp floor, Diana faster than all the rest, and thank god Bruce is in civilian clothes, because otherwise the cowl’s Bat-ears would have stabbed Wonder Woman in the cheek.

“Jason, what are you – ”

Bruce doesn’t get to finish his sentence, because Jason dashes up, producing a marker and pad of paper out of his back pocket along the way, and says,

“Can I have an autograph?”

Bruce’s mouth slams shut, Zatanna lets out a surprised snort-giggle, and Wonder Woman just smiles.

( _Heaven almighty_ , what a smile. Her eyes crinkle around the edges, and the just-lopsided curve to her lips seems to reach all the way down into every inch of her posture. Something inside of Jason throws its arms up in defeat and lies down to die when she smiles, and he has absolutely zero qualms believing the rumour going around the hero community the past few months that Diana Prince is a direct descendant of the gods of Olympus.)

“Of course, Jay.”

And Jason is immediately thrown back in time to three a.m.s in the Cave, sneaking around trying to get a glimpse of Wonder Woman on the screens when Bruce was having his long-distance League meetings, before inevitably being caught and sent up to bed with a Bat scowl. Before today, the only firsthand experience he’d had of Wonder Woman was that very same voice, distorted through the display’s speakers but still instantly reminiscent of crackling firewood and gathering thunderstorms.

And then, of course, he’d died – and then _come back_ – and any preteen desire to sit down with Wonder Woman discussing the finer points of Kate Chopin for two hours had fallen completely by the wayside.

But now, _now_ , she deposits Damian into B’s hands, takes the pad and signs her name; _Diana_ in quick, sure sweeps of the felt marker and leaves a little smiley face in the corner as well, and Jay doesn’t think he takes even one breath in that entire time.

And then,

“Diana.”

Bruce’s voice breaks the silence, and the moment flees. Jason retrieves the pad and steps back, all the breath coming out of him in a loud whoosh.

And Wonder Woman is all business again, turning to face Bruce, but not before patting the back of Jason’s hand and giving him one last smile.

“I don’t think you missed out anything,” she tells Bruce, “everything Damian told me was pretty much consistent with whatever you managed to interpret from his messages and…charades. I’m inclined to agree with your current hypothesis.”

“Yeah, B,” Zatanna chimes in, “whatever’s happening to li’l D there is definitely of magical origin. Doesn’t seem to malicious, though. You said that he and Dick went to check out some abandoned magic shop last week?”

Bruce and Damian nod in tandem, and Jason finally tunes into the conversation. No one has told him about a working theory about what happened to Damian yet, although he’s not surprised that B would just forget to tell the rest of the kids, let alone Jason.

“I guess it must have been a legit shop,” says Zatanna, “usually, these shops are just full of, y’know, prank buzzers and card games and plastic replica stuff, but sometimes when owners get their hands on real magical artefacts, well.” She shrugs. “If they accumulate enough crap then there could be quite a bit of latent energy hanging around the place, which is probably more or less what happened to Damian. Some semi-sentient thingamajig decided to get funny. Happens sometimes.”

“Could Dick have gotten cursed or spelled or whatever, then?” Jason asks, “And does this kind of thing, like, rub off on someone else?”

Zatanna purses her lips before glancing at Damian, who is now back in Diana’s hands and apparently much too comfortable to display at any of his usual outrage at being discussed like an outsider to the conversation.

“I don’t think so? I mean – but nah; these kinds of things are usually pretty straightforward, those affected tend to more or less show the same, um, symptoms, if you will. If Dick hasn’t had anything weird happen to him by now then he’s probably fine. I could give him a quick look over still, though?” She directs this last part to Bruce, who nods.

“That would be best, thank you. Any idea how long this will last,” Bruce replies.

“I’m not sure, I’ll probably have to stay for a while longer and see how quickly the magic breaks down before I could give you an estimate.” At this, a mischievous grin creeps onto her face, “Waddaya say, Bat-bestie? Got any swanky rooms for me to roll around in for the next day or so?”

Bruce’s lips flatten.

“Same here, old friend,” Diana pipes up softly, “Perhaps my services as an interpreter will still be required.” She is completely straight-faced, but there is a shine in her eye that definitely wasn’t there before.

“I’m not sure if that would be…appropriate.”

Zatanna pouts, and Wonder Woman shifts her weight a little. Damian has flown to perch on her shoulder, looking alarmingly in-the-know.

There is a pondering look on Wonder Woman’s face, her head tilted to one side, but the glint to her gaze hasn’t left, and when she opens her mouth to speak again it becomes clear why.

“Why, Bruce, I admit that perhaps as an Amazon I am not clear on the customs of Man’s World, and Hera knows Gotham is unique in itself. I was under the impression, however, that you usually have no qualms extending your…fabled hospitality to women of all shapes and sizes.”

An expression flashes across Bruce’s face, one that could almost be a normal-human grimace.

Jason, for one, is utterly delighted.

Wonder Woman is a gigantic _troll_.

***

Zatanna and Diana each get their own rooms, respectively, after much tutting from Alfred and two cups of tea in the parlour while he bustles around shaking out clean linens and patting down pillowcases. Diana’s door is two down from Damian’s, for easy access.

To Bruce’s chagrin, this courtesy doesn’t do much other than allow Zatanna, after two days of following Damian around, to come to exactly zero conclusions about the nature and/or longevity of the spell Damian seems to be under.

***

When Bruce steps out of the Batmobile and into the cave exactly a week after the magic shop incident, he does so under the false impression that he would be alone, left in quiet with his work. He has a backlog of League paperwork downstairs and four folders of WE papers, aggressively footnoted and post-its-ed, upstairs. Tim is in Kansas visiting his Super friend, Dick is probably still in bed sleeping off a particularly nasty drinking game with Jason, the girls are in Florida for the weekend, and Jason – well.

Jason had backed out of patrol three hours before, swanning out of the Manor with the promise to come back with more booze for a second round with Dick.

He is halfway through dumping his sewer-ruined boots into biohazard disposal when he hears a soft voice, a low whisper, coming from roughly five meters above his head. A quick glance at the Cave notice board, set up and fiercely maintained by Stephanie, tells him that there were no planned visitors for tonight.

He stands stock still, one boot still in hand, trying to decide the quietest but quickest route to the source of the noise when laughter rings out across the cave, in the unmistakeable tones of Diana of Themyscira.

“Diana,” Bruce calls, directing it somewhere in the general direction of up.

A pause, then a rustle, and a face framed by warm brown curls pokes out over a rock outcropping somewhere diagonally to his left.

“Hello, Bruce.” Her smile is warm, amused, and she gives a little wave.

“What are you doing.”

“I’m with Damian!” She whispers behind her shoulder for a moment, and sure enough, a bright and feathered head is the next to peek out over at Bruce.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“We’re having a tea party!”

“You. And Damian. You’re having a tea party, in the Cave, at two in the morning,” Bruce replies. His head is still craned upwards, and his neck is starting to twinge a little in protest.

“Well, not just the two of us, we’re having tea with the bats!” Wonder Woman smiles beatifically down. Bruce doesn’t respond, and Damian chirps a little at Diana.

“Damian has been spending quite a bit of time with them over the past few days, what with his…condition. He wished to communicate more effectively with them, and asked me to translate. I suggested a nice sit down, and we both agreed it wouldn’t be very nice to ask the _nocturnal_ bats to have a cup of tea with us when they were supposed to be sleeping.” She pauses to shake a tea cup a little before continuing and Bruce can hear the liquid sloshing around inside. “Did you know your bats have a weakness for rosehips?”

Bruce blinks up at her in silence, before lowering his head to address the wall in front of him rather than cause himself further pain.

“They’re not _my_ bats,” he says, and it’s almost a grumble.

***

Dick is still nursing a massive headache when Alfred sweeps into his room with a glass of water and painkillers in hand, and so he thinks he’s justified when he buries his head further into the pillow rather than respond in any way to the butler’s entrance.

“Rise and shine, Master Dick,” says Alfred, “I would rather avoid a very preventable case of dehydration in my own home.”

The glass and the painkillers are set down on the bedside table before the blackout curtains are pulled open to allow in a burst of sunlight, which only causes a deep, prolonged groan from Dick. He lies in the relative quiet and darkness of an Egyptian cotton for a few more seconds, the sounds of Alfred bustling about his work familiar ambient noise, before he rolls over to reach for the offered remedies.

Dick squints.

“Is Damian flying around with a bunch of mini flags or am I hallucinating?”

“Master Damian was getting restless and eager for something to do, I believe, given that most of his usual pursuits have been rendered impossible by recent events. Since the young master is, unlike some others in this household, not predisposed to extremely unadvisable and childish acts of foolishness, I was inclined to allow him to help with the household chores.” The sentence, delivered deadpan without so much as a glance in Dick’s direction, is punctuated by Damian sticking one of said tiny flags in a vent over the bed.

“I am afraid the landscaping work that must be done to prepare for spring will take up a large amount of my time, so Master Damian is assisting me with prioritising areas of the house for cleaning. I would do this myself, but he _is_ better equipped to peer into small or high spaces, and this seemed a better outlet than staying in his room, ripping bedsheets out of stress.”

“That’s nice,” Dick ventures, after gulping down the whole glass of water.

“It is, Master Dick,” replies Alfred, who _now_ turns to level a gaze at him, “so would not having to deal with the drunken antics of twenty-year-old men who should know better.”

Damian chooses this moment to land on Dick’s nose, and sneezes dust in his face.

Dick didn’t even know _birds could sneeze_.

***

“Demonbird.”

Damian’s head jerks up at the call, before turning away just as quickly to stare steadfastly at the book he is hovering over. Jason smirks. Under normal circumstances there would be exactly zero reaction to anyone other than Bruce, Alfred or Dick addressing him directly, but it has slowly come to light over the past week that Damian the bird, apparently, does not have the same control over his reactions that Damian the boy does.

(One week of experience in bird form has nothing on ten years in boy form, and definitely not on ten years in League-trained assassin form.)

“I heard from Alfie that you’ve been doing quite a bit of recon in the vents for him.”

There is no sound in response other than the occasional rustle of a page, disturbed by the mini-breeze Damian’s wings create.

“What are the odds that I could get you to shit on Bruce’s head for me?”

The wing-beating stops, and Damian lands with a _thud_ on the yellowed tome. He is still, little head craned up to stare at the older boy with a look that Jason, having not yet mastered the art of avian facial expressions, cannot decipher.

And then, in the blink of an eye there is a sharp pain blooming across his cheek and Damian has flown up to his face and back, tapping furiously on the reading desk in the Morse code Jason knows he uses to communicate with Bruce. Two of the three claws on his left foot are stained red, and Jason gets over his initial shock pretty damned quickly.

“What the fuck, Damian!” His hand lifts to the stinging wound and comes away bloody. Jason is perfectly content to ignore whatever the fuck the little devil is tapping into the wood but Bruce, damn him, trained the alphabet of dots and dashes into him so hard when he was twelve that now his brain translates effortlessly.

_-dare you, Todd, you uncouth filth-_

“Now hold the _fuck_ up-” Jason is stalking closer and actual anger is rising rapidly in his throat now but he doesn’t know how to retaliate against a damned _bird_.

Damian is pecking so hard and so fast now that his body seems almost a blur of colour and a hole is rapidly appearing in the lacquered finish of the antique desk. Jason feels a flash of worry in his chest and reaches out to rescue the book, just in case, but the younger boy doesn’t seem to notice, continuing his solo tirade of beak thudding against wood.

_-as if I would ever relieve myself in public like some untamed rodent like a pest with no control over my own bodily functions perhaps you should be the one getting checked by the sorceress downstairs todd since you appear to lack normal human cognitive ability-_

“Dude, it was just a joke, holy Christ,” Jason interrupts, yelling to be heard over the _thocks_ rising into a crescendo. Damian finally pauses, looks up at him with a heaving chest and a now _very_ recognisable glare.

“I was _kidding_ , you little psycho, shit,” Jason breathes out.

The silence stretches out for a few long moments as they stare at each other, Jason hugging the leather-bound book tight to his chest, Damian leaving smudged prints on the surface under his feet.

“Tt.” Damian finally breaks the silence, before flying away into the rafters. Jason is left, stunned, cheek still throbbing.

***

“Damian?” His youngest’s room is spotless when Bruce pushes the door open to peek in, not a book or bedcover out of line, but the kid himself is nowhere to be seen.

Alfred, however, had assured him that he saw a colourful blur disappear in through this very same doorway not fifteen minutes ago. He had followed that up with a meaningful stare, mirrored by Dick’s incessant whining over the past two nights of patrol, and Tim’s weird blank look, and Jason and Steph’s frowns, and Zatanna’s hissed whispers, and Cass’ silent poking, and Diana’s raised brows and, well.

Bruce, outmanoeuvred by his family and his own concern, grits his teeth and walks in all the way, closing the door noiselessly behind him.

“Damian, I wanted to talk to you,” he ventures. He makes sure that his voice reaches all corners of the room.

No response.

A hand raked through charcoal hair greying ever so slightly at the temples, and Bruce sits down on the edge of the bed. He can’t seem to shake the bizarre feeling that comes with being a grown man sitting in a kid’s bedroom speaking out loud, seemingly to himself.

But this is one of his children, so Bruce does what Bruce does best.

Bruce soldiers on.

“We’ve all been there, Damian.” He realises this may not be much of a comfort, so he changes tack. “Zatanna says it will pass.”

Decades of dealing with frightened children – and elderly, and abused spouses, and streetwalkers – means he has had practice in sounding surer than he feels. Both the Batman and Bruce Wayne have a tendency to deal in worst-case scenarios. Whether it’s an occupational hazard or an unpleasant quirk of his personality, he can’t quite say.

“We’re always here to help,” he continues, stilted, the words limping out slowly.

This is _not_ his forte, and Bruce is nothing if not endlessly self-aware; he is bad with words and worse with comfort, he knows, but he also knows there are times when platitudes may be more useful than blunt honesty.

But it is at times like these that he resents the way his words get locked in his chest, resents the way that he has never quite been able to figure out exactly what to say at exactly the right time.

His son, thankfully, saves him from this quagmire like he does from so many others. He flies down gracefully from a darkened nook, before sitting a cautious distance away on the bedcovers.

“Damian,” and the name is a sigh. There is a pause, and then Bruce reaches out a long arm to easily hold Damian in his hand. The boy is trembling, he realises – he couldn’t tell just now, with him an arm’s length away, but now Bruce feels him shiver and holds him a little closer to his own chest. His son burrows into the hold, small body shrinking impossibly smaller as he draws in on himself.

“You’re a member of this family, and you’ll always be a member of this family, bird or no,” Bruce says, voice scratching slightly at the sudden drop in volume. He feels Damian push harder into the grey tank he’s wearing and the boy’s feathers poke and itch through the cotton blend, but Bruce doesn’t pull his hand away from his chest. He pauses.

If it were any of his other children this would be where they would put him out of his misery, a laugh at his expense and a knowing look as he struggles with himself – maybe even an “I love you”, maybe even a “Dad” thrown into the mix.

But as it is this is Damian, and in any case this is Damian turned into a bird. So all he says, after a long silence, is,

“You’re my son.”

And for just a split second he almost expects to hear the cadence of an “Of course,” in that haughty voice just two notes away from his usual tone; the one that comes hand in hand with a blush high on his cheeks and a suddenly thicker accent that reminds Bruce, strangely, of Alfred.

But no response comes, and for now Bruce contents himself with the steady rise and fall of Damian’s chest and he tells himself the same thing he tried to tell Damian.

_Just a little while more._


End file.
